Crimean authorities prohibit hijab for driver's license photos

Officials of the Interdistrict Registration Test Department (IRTD) of the Crimean town of Feodosia prohibited a Muslim woman, Zelikhe Kadyrova, and two other women from wearing hijab for  their driver's license photos. The hijab is the traditional Muslim women’s headdress covering the ears, neck and part of the face.

The women complained to the State Traffic Police (STP) of the Crimea, but the officials supported the position of IRTD. They then went to court, but to no avail. According to a decision of the Circuit Administrative Court of the Crimea, the requirement that citizens’ photos should be taken without a headdress is applied both to passport and driver's license photos.

As RISU reported earlier, according to the decision of the Circuit Administrative Court of Kyiv of June 4, 2010, Muslim women do not have a right to take photos of themselves in the headdress for official documents. The court refused to grant the request of Susanna Ismailova to paste into her passport a photo of herself wearing the headdress, which she is supposed to wear according to her religious beliefs. The Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine was the respondent then. The court insisted that the rights of the Muslim woman are not infringed upon and, therefore, girls should take photos without the headdress. However, in March 2011, a deputy of the Supreme Council of Ukraine, Valerii Bondyk (Party of Regions), addressed the Minister of Internal Affairs, Anatolii Mohyliov, with a request to remind the officials that Muslim women have a right to observe the requirements of their religion.

However, the Ministry of Internal Affairs questioned the norm of the Constitution confirmed by the Law of the Freedom of Worship and Religious Organizations. Order 600 issued in June 2006 has become a kind of a counterargument with respect to the position of Valerii Bondyk as it obliges the citizens to take photos of themselves without headdresses for the passports. This contradicts the canons of Islam prohibiting women to uncover their hair and figure in front of men who are not their relatives.

The First Deputy of the Head of the Committee of the Supreme Council on Human Rights, National Minorities and Interethnic Relations, Viktor Taran (Yulia Tymoshenko’s Motherland Bloc), said that that an amendment to the Law on the Freedom of Conscience and Religious Organizations could help the Ukrainian Muslims in this matter and stated that he was ready to prepare such an amendment.